Camera carrying cases are a well known accessory used by both amateur and professional photographers. A subclass of such devices is the camera bag, a usually soft sided case with a plurality of pockets for storing various types of photographic equipment. Camera bags have traditionally been provided with a shoulder strap for carrying the bag over the user's shoulder. Camera bags have been constructed from various materials including leather, synthetic leather substitutes, and cloth materials such as rip-stop nylon and canvas duck.
It has long been known that carrying weight on a user's hips is preferable to carrying that same weight from a position higher on the user's anatomy, since placing the weight over the hips removes strain from the back and further lowers the center of gravity and thus decreases the risk of falling. For this reason, some backpack designs have provided a waist belt for transferring weight strain to the hip area. A more recent development has been the "fanny pack", which is a small pouch attached to a waist belt such that articles may be carried therein with the entire weight of the fanny pack and contents riding on the user's hips.
Some efforts at combining the principles of the fanny pack with the requirements of a camera case have been attempted. These have, heretofore, consisted of modifications of a conventional camera bag to allow it to be carried on a waist belt. However, since conventional camera bags were never intended for this purpose, it is not surprising that such efforts have been less than totally successful.
It is reasonable to assume that a waist-attached camera bag would be found most desirable by those users who carry their camera equipment over considerable distances, such as nature photographers, news photographers and the like. Such persons frequently find themselves in situations where it is most undesirable to have to set their bag down in order to gain access thereto, such as in rough or muddy terrain or in crowds of people. further, in such situations, since there is frequently no work surface on which to place items such as lens caps and the like while working with the camera, it is necessary to keep the bag at hand in order to place such items therein. An important additional factor is that opportunities for obtaining specific photographs are often fleeting. Time taken to remove the bag to gain access therefore time taken trying to gain access to a camera from a conventional bag/belt combination, often means the loss of an opportunity.
One problem which has existed in prior attempts at waist-attached camera bags is that conventional camera bags are designed to be accessed from their "front", which is the accepted terminology for the side of the bag which normally faces away from the user while the bag is being carried. With conventional designs, if the user attempts to gain access to the bag while the is wearing it on a waist belt, the top flap of the bag is interposed between the user and the bag's contents.
Yet another problem which has existed in prior attempts at waist-attached camera bags is that conventional camera bags do not provide a means or centering the weight of the bag over the belt area. The belt may be attached near the top of the bag, but this leaves the bulk of the bag hanging below the weight attachment point over the user's hips. The dangling bag interferes with the movements of the user, and further causes the bag to be jostled abut unduly, thus potentially causing damage to the delicate camera equipment therein. Alternatively, the belt can be attached to the bag near the vertical center of the bag to place the bag more advantageously. However, this solution results, with a conventional camera bag, in the bag sagging and deforming under the weight of its contents.
An example of a camera bag with waist attachment means is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,545,414 issued to Baum. The camera bag of the Baum invention is intended primarily for use with a shoulder strap only. A belt, for attachment to the waist of a user, is concealed within a pocket in the camera bag during normal use. When required, the belt may be extracted from the pocket and used. The Baum invention is very useful in that it provides a supplemental means of carrying the camera bag for those users who intend to carry the bag with a shoulder strap most of the time. However, since the Baum apparatus is not intended primarily for attachment to the user's waist, the device suffers, as would be expected, from the several aforementioned problems associated with the use of conventional camera bags in this manner.
Yet another example in the prior art of a camera bag capable of waist attachment is sold by Tamrac, Inc., of Canoga Park, CA. The Tamrac.sup..about. Convertible.sup..about. series of bags are a series of conventional type camera bags with provision for attachment of a belt thereto. One of the series, the Deluxe Convertible.sup..about., improves on the Baum patented device in the respect that the belt provided is wider at that portion where the belt is attached to the bag and further is attached closer to the center line of the bag. Of course, this improvement itself leads to the aforementioned problem regarding sagging of the camera bag under the weight of its contents. This problem might be corrected in part by securing the camera bag belt very tightly about the user's waist, but that solution also would detract from the comfort and utility of the device. Furthermore, since the Tamrac- bags are conventional in design except for the addition of a belt, the other aforementioned problems have not been addressed in that design.
All of the prior art camera bags within the inventors' knowledge have been constructed such that the user must either remove the bag to gain access to the contents thereof, or else must work around the top closure of the bag while attempting to gain such access.
No prior art camera bag to the inventors' knowledge has successfully allowed the bag to be comfortably carried on the user's hip area without interfering with the user's movements and while preventing undue airing of the camera equipment therein. All successful applications to date have been attempts to adapt a waist belt to a conventional camera bag.